The fight for diverse and conscious voices

Sense8 seriously music virused me last night (yes, I'm late to the game, yes I'm only a few episodes in - if you spoiler I will cut you). So, much as I like 4 Non-Blondes I'm going to try to scrub this out with other music. Turns out I have a lot of tabs open so I'll split this into two posts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5WoWbPI7fs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJSik6ejkr0
I know I've talked about Reload Sessions before but I haven't explicitly tagged them as such so I can't back-link. They're an occasional video series of talented but usually not-widely-popular vocalists doing mostly acoustic covers of pop tunes. This time it's Stephanie Rainey (http://stephanierainey.com/) with a single guitarist covering "Running" from Naughty Boys (and Beyonce). The original is a much more dramatic piano-heavy power ballad. It's always a risk covering a track done by a powerful vocalist and this track really polishes Beyonce's powerful voice to a fine sheen. The Reload obviously is a lot simpler and carries its emotional load differently. Both are excellent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXP3GfyVfHw
I've posted a lot of EDM here but there are variations and variants that I don't often cover. This is an old track that popped up in a recent set and reminded me how much I love the crossovers between Euro-American club music and traditional middle eastern styles. There's a swath of music that usually gets lumped under "world" or sometimes "bellydance" that starts on the west somewhere in Algeria, spans northern Africa and most of the modern Middle Eastern states (not excluding Turkey), ending up somewhere in Pakistan and western India - all of which I love. This is "Sandstorm" from Naked Rhythm, a track that's about 10 years old now but used to be a staple of my listening sets. Still love it.

https://soundcloud.com/sikadaofficial/selardi
In the same general vein but more modern here's "Selardi" from Sikada, which appears to be a stage name for one Leo James from the UK (https://soundcloud.com/sikadaofficial). The music is undeniably Middle Eastern-influenced as you can hear in its percussion, though the track notes claim it uses a guzheng - a traditional Chinese instrument. Despite those older influences this is still a high-BPM modern dance number.

https://soundcloud.com/featurecast/999a
Another of my favorite non-mainstream styles - reggae - gets front and center here in Featurecast's "999". It's labeled as both glitch hop (which it is) and ghetto funk (which it's not so much). Rock, dance, and reggae have traded genes back and forth since at least the 1950s so you'll find most any permutation that pleases you somewhere. This one is high BPM, electronic, and still something I expect Bob Marley would recognize.

With all the travel and such I haven't had time to listen to a lot of the stream, but I do have an assortment of tabs to close. A good helping of funk then some varied offerings.

https://soundcloud.com/father-funk/its-all-about-u
First up, Father Funk's latest piece makes me nostalgic and excited at the same time. There's so much in here - from the finger-snaps to the soul-inspired bass track - that reminds me of the early days of funk and then it's clearly built up with fuzz, electro, bits of hip-hop and other very modern things. I need a wide-brim hat.

https://soundcloud.com/stickybuds/stickybuds-featurecast-3-6-9
Stickybuds and Featurecast give us another very modern take on old themes, here using funk and do-wop stems to build up a glitchy, dubstep-influenced dance track. Totally dope and totally groovy.

https://soundcloud.com/stickybuds/toots-the-maytals-hard-to
Another entry from Stickybuds, this time a remix of a classic, "Hard to Handle". Stickybuds credit it to Toots and the Maytalls and their version is excellent (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5oANHA8wxE) but I believe the song originated with Otis Redding. Regardless, it's great source material and this remix has the trademark glitch and electro notes you heard on 3-6-9, assuming you click the links in order.

https://soundcloud.com/carlosserranomusic/nas-vs-flume-made-you-hold-on-carlos-serrano-mix
Nas was an influential rapper and hip-hop artist but I never got into his music the way I did others. Here Nas is mixed up against Flume's "Holdin On" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aynV4UOU-As) and the contrast is interesting and unobvious and it works. The Flume track is interesting itself - a skinny white kid playing obviously black gospel-influenced music - and the mash replaces most of the originals distorted vocals with Nas's raw lyrics.

--- I can't think of a clever transition from the previous track to this one so just imagine a set change happened here ---

https://soundcloud.com/armadamusic/cosmic-gate-jes-yai-here-we-go-again
Cosmic Gate has a series of vocal trance "sessions" out and if this is representative of what they're doing, I want more. It has the earmarks of great trance: high BPM, subdued but urgent, and fantastic vocals. Listen around 1:50 when she does the first "Here we go again" - it gives me spine tingles. Sadly the track doesn't feature as much vocal (or as much length) as I'd like, but you take what you can get.

https://soundcloud.com/doornrecords/sander-van-doorn-firebeatz-julian-jordan-rage-original-mix
Sander van Doorn is someone I've listened to off and on for some years. I got re-interested a couple months ago and have been trying to find that stood out from the typical house sounds. I think "Rage" fits the bill nicely. It starts off the way you'd expect, kind of pulling in various musical threads to the point where it has your attention and DROPs hard with an unashamed electro bang.

I have some updatey things to post, but first closing out a group of music tabs on a rainy Friday. Hope some of this gets you dancing. Several are old links that only recently drifted into my hearing and then there's one new awesome thing at the end.

https://soundcloud.com/featurecast/featurecast-my-thing
When I posted a Featurecast link back in January I also started poking around the things he'd uploaded to Soundcloud and this one - despite being a year old - stood out. It's funky and danceable built mostly around the Isley Brothers classic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMimqfJVedE) but sped up and spiced with breakbeats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXFBXSPk6JI
https://www.myspace.com/fioramusic
One of the things Armin Van Buuren is best at is finding different voices. You rarely hear an established name fronting his tracks but you should pay attention to who he picks. This one caught my ear - she just doesn't have a typical voice. The singer goes by Fiora - that second link is her site - and if you go there you can see why. She's a classically trained vocalist. Sure, the track has good production values behind it, but her voice has a strength and clarity that stand out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO5X9ZUzqXM
I'm trying to remember where I first ran across Betoko (https://www.myspace.com/betoko). This track is far and away my favorite of his though it's almost a year old now. Betoko is Mexican by heritage but clearly London styled. This is some deep electro-house, a style he seems not to hit on his other posted samples.

https://soundcloud.com/djschmolli/dj-schmolli-suit-tie-any-way
DJ Schmolli has been posting some sweet tracks lately. This one is mostly an A|B mix of the 1970's soul act People's Choice and (yes, really) Justin Timberlake. Fortunately for us all the soul wins out and the track feels like a modern update of the classic "Do It Any Way You Wanna" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTKGbTGaMJY).

https://soundcloud.com/thebluewalrus/florence-and-the-machine-no
I stumbled on this a while back looking up some other track. Turns out this track is like the first 10 hits if you search on 'Spector Ryan Gosling'. It's a remix of Florence's powerful "No Light, No Light". The question with any remix is whether the remix adds something or shows the track in a new way and here I'm... unsure. Gosling has done a lot of stretching and warping starting around 2:40 that I just don't think works. The rest of the remix is pretty good, but probably not better than the original track.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kzt5dzyy-Q
Speaking of remixes, you can't turn around without tripping over a remix or cover of Daft Punk's new single "Get Lucky". It hasn't quite reached Gaga or Gotye levels, but give it time. I don't much like the original nor most covers, but then there's this guy, a picker named Charles Butler who's doing the entire song on banjo. That's kind of amusing.

Why do I know about this cover? I know because this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zAEBE2DQbI
That, dear hearts, is Beats Antique's cover of Charles Butler's cover of "Get Lucky". And it is an awesome thing. It's got Beats Antique's patented crunk rhythms under Butler's banjos and it makes me smile every time I play it.

Due to holidays and absences and associated business I haven't had time to put a music post together. This time I want to bring to your attention two long-form listens that I haven't done in a while and talk about some new things as well. Plus there's the return of two long-absent voices you absolutely should hear.

http://www.djsteveboy.com/groovetime.html
I used to blog DJ Steveboy's sets regularly, then stopped for a variety of reasons. With any long-form set there are many chances to dislike it and I've felt that his sets haven't held together completely. There are good tracks and bad tracks and often I found myself stopping or skipping. Not this time. This is deep house done to perfection. The set is called "Roll Program" and among other things it's a tribute to the late Neil Armstrong, featuring samples of NASA audio and giving you that feeling of deep expanses of space, without drifting into annoying spaciness or irrelevance. I found this set immensely comforting for the moods I've been in.

http://audioporncentral.com/2012/09/featurecast-run-for-cover-full-album.html
Featurecast (http://soundcloud.com/featurecast) are offering a free stream of their first album and it's funkalicious! It's also got a wide mix of styles (electro jump around anyone?) and a lot of good featured performers. One of the best things about this album is that its variety exists not just for the sake of difference, but to promote the different styles. Within each style, though, there's solid funk and soul groundings and rapid-fire vocal expressions that tie the whole thing together. I'm only on my third listen-through and it's really hard to pick out a favorite track - they're all good.

http://audioporncentral.com/2012/08/reset-wind-up.html
Reset (http://www.wearereset.com/about/) are a five-man Italian music collective that nevertheless manage to give us an absolutely splendid fast-paced reggaeton track. My only complaint is that the version rendered for the video is too short and sort of broken up. It could easily stand to be a 4:30- or 5-minute track.

http://audioporncentral.com/2012/09/ruinmytune-dedication-to-my-boys-and-girls.html
Ruinmytune has been doing a number of mash-ups lately that I haven't been all that impressed by - he hasn't seemed to be adding anything to his excellent starting tracks. This, however, is a hot exception and worth a listen. I admit to a personal weakness, as I really like the Blur tune he's working from ("Boys and Girls" - does anyone NOT like this one?). The mix is four main tunes plus samples and it's got depth and you can hear the main tracks all the way through. Really a nice mash.

http://audioporncentral.com/2012/09/dead-can-dance-opium.html
What do you do when one of your favorite acts goes on hiatus for 12 years? You move on, of course, but you also remember how the music affected you and changed you back then. I remember in 1987 when their third album came out and a friend brought it over - they were hard to get in the US back then. When he found out I'd never heard of them he sat me down and had me listen all the way through the first three. It was intense and he never quite understood why I loved Lisa Gerrard's singing and really just tolerated Brendan Perry. If I'd heard this track, which is classic-style Perry at his best ever, I might have had a different opinion. The music is also classic DCD, with sweeping orchestral themes and tribal percussion, intensely layered and richly produced.

http://rcrdlbl.com/2012/08/08/stream_bob_mould_the_descent
Bob Mould is another one that lots of people haven't heard of and that's really a shame. Husker Du were one of the first bands to evolve a punk sound (which I didn't like) into an alternative approach (which I adored). They never lost the thrash and drive of that early music but they stopped being afraid of melody and harmony and Mould's voice grew to equal his guitar chops. His project, Sugar, first hit the air 20 years ago (man, I'm old) and in my opinion there aren't any hardcore alternative albums as good as Copper Blue. This is the first single off Silver Age, a new album that's said to be in the old style. Yeah, Mould still has it, despite the balding and the gray beard and the glasses.